Walking in Balance
by LunaRowena
Summary: "I trust myself. I feed the force with my emotions, yes, but I'm not ruled by them. 'Emotion, yet peace.' And sometimes that's anger. And sometimes that's love."


If you had told Theron, oh, even a couple months ago that he would not only be cooperating with Sith Lords but living with them, he would have laughed. He dedicated his life to the Republic, no way was he going to be working with the enemy. And not just Imperials, but Sith Lords? Powerful beings with the impulse control of a toddler?

But that was before the Revanites. Here, on Rishi, the enemy was a lot less clear cut. That still didn't mean he was sleeping soundly at night. He almost trusted Lana at this point, at least for this op. She was still Sith, but she was pragmatic, and that he could understand and work with. The Emperor's Wrath, on the other hand, unsettled him. Supposedly, she was the embodiment of the wrath of the Sith. In practice, he had seen Jedi with worse self control than the woman. Combined with the intel the Republic had on her making no sense for a Sith Lord, Theron couldn't get a read on her.

It bothered the hell out of him.

He blinked, turning away from the light of the screens. And here she was, intruding on his thoughts when he was supposed to be doing data analysis on Nova Blade shipments. Theron blinked again in the darkness. How late was it? He checked the clock. Late. Had he eaten? Damn it.

Pushing back the Lana Beniko in his brain being mildly disappointed in him—_We can't succeed if you're not at your best, Theron, which means remembering to eat and sleep—_he pushed himself away from the monitors. Eat food, go to bed; tomorrow, defeat the Nova Blades. Normal people things.

Light shone out from the kitchen as he approached. Was it a good or bad thing that he wasn't the only person up this late? He was going to get a kick out of it if it was Lana. He rounded the corner.

No, it was _her_.

Theron stopped short in the doorway. The Emperor's Wrath sat at the steel table, staring into a mug. The Zabrak wore plain clothing, as normal, her dark brown hair pulled back in a simple clip. She wore white, all white, all the time, which bothered Theron. It was too un-Sith-like. His eyes drifted down to her waist. Dual sabers. Golden. Not red.

She continued staring into the mug, her hands wrapped around. If she hadn't noticed him yet–

"Hello, Theron."

Right. Force sensitives. "Yeah, hey." Well, at this point it was too awkward to just walk away and he still hadn't eaten. He made his way over to the counter, making sure not to turn his back on her.

"You're up late." Her eyes followed him around the kitchen, her face betraying no emotion.

"So are you." Make something fast. Theron didn't want to be drawn into a conversation with this woman.

"I have a bad feeling about tomorrow."

"A normal bad feeling or a force-y bad feeling?"

"I don't know."

They lapsed into silence, her watching him make a sandwich. Except now came the question, did he awkwardly stand at the counter eating, or sit down at the table with her?

She gave a snort, as if figuring out his dilemma. "I promise I don't bite."

"That doesn't seem very Sith-y."

Her emotionless face broke and she gave a small smile. "Only if you say, 'please.'"

That was the other thing that disturbed him about this woman. The inkling that she was trying to flirt with him. And the fact he wasn't entirely unreceptive. At first it had thrown him, then he started reflexively firing back. He had seen her almost smile. Not like he should care.

Theron would be the first to admit he was a workaholic and that didn't leave a lot of time for… other things. Other people. The more you could rely on yourself, the less other people could let you down. He didn't have time for the concept of 'loneliness.' But if a Sith Lord could turn his head…

Yeah. Getting involved with a Sith Lord. Even if she was attractive, that was a whole lot of paperwork and a whole lot of 'nope.'

Theron stood at the counter with his sandwich. She sat at the table with her mug watching him… hopefully? Stars, he couldn't read her. Or maybe he could and he just couldn't understand what he found. Didn't want to understand.

But they were the only people in the kitchen. At this hour it was unlikely anyone was going to walk in and rescue him… from what exactly? Keeping his distance seemed petty at this point, though. He pulled out a chair at the table.

"So why are you up?" she asked.

"Work." Theron took a bite of his sandwich.

"On what?"

Theron rolled his eyes as he had to finish chewing. "The Nova Blades. Shipping manifests. It's dull. You don't really want to know."

"All the holos make intelligence work out to be so glamorous." She reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, well. It's not all blowing up superweapons in your underwear. Sometimes it's data analysis of really boring data."

Her hand paused mid sweep and the loose strand fell back down beside her cheek. "Is that something you actually did?"

"I can't talk about it." He took another bite of his sandwich.

They sat in silence for a bit, him eating his sandwich, her playing with that mug. She kept looking up at him, looking like she was about to say something, then letting her gaze fall back down. Right now the tension was killing him more.

Fine. If she wanted to talk, he'd talk. "So what exactly do I call you then? The Emperor's Wrath with a capital 'The?' Lord Wrath? I'm going to tell you right now I'm not calling you 'my lord.'"

She shrugged, tapping her fingers against the side of her mug. "Just Kariess."

He had read the files the Republic had on her. Kariess Va'shaal. Member of a long line of Sith. "...really?"

"Vette calls me Kari, but I don't think we're close enough friends for that yet."

Right. He had never understood the blue Twi'lek. He could moderately understand the other collection of Imperials she had with her, but as far as he could dig up about Vette she was a former thief. There was no data how she wound up running with a Sith Lord. "What exactly is Vette to you?"

Not looking at him, she ran her thumb over the rim of the mug. "My best friend."

"And Jaesa Willsaam?" The official story was that the Emperor's Wrath, a mere Lord at the time, had corrupted the padawan to the dark side.

"My apprentice."

"Jaesa Willsaam isn't exactly burning with malice. I saw her apologize to a spoon she dropped."

Every trace of emotion wiped from her face into a blank slate. "She's no longer a Jedi."

"Which means…?"

She uncurled her hands from the mug and folded them in front of her on the table. "What exactly are you trying to accuse me of, Theron?"

He leaned forward on his elbows. "You are the least evil Sith I've ever met."

Her face remained blank, just watching him. "And you have a problem with that? Shouldn't you be happy?"

Shouldn't he? He took a bite of his sandwich, holding eye contact. Nothing flickered in her honey-colored eyes. Not red. Not even glowing. Theron tipped back in his chair, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "I can't figure you out."

She continued to stare at him, unblinking, but her guard seemed to drop slightly. "Haven't you already?"

Theron let the chair fall back to the ground with a thud. "Where do I start? You look more like an edgy Jedi, if Jedi wore tight clothes—although I have seen some Twi'leks—not the point. You run around with a 'corrupted' Jedi who barely pretends to not be a marshmallow. I've met Jedi Masters with less self control than you. And some of the reports on you…"

"What are those?" she asked evenly.

"In all your interactions with the Jedi, you avoided killing them—even coming into conflict with them—if you could avoid it."

She said nothing. The electric light overhead hummed.

He could swear she was almost laughing at him now. "But! You're supposed to be the embodiment of the Sith, of all the sadism, degeneration, _wrath_, and all that means."

Slowly she raised the mug to her lips, taking the first sip of whatever it was she was drinking so far tonight. She carefully replaced the mug on the table. "So you're having trouble with the concept that your sworn enemy doesn't live up to your expectations."

Maybe. "So you're not even going to deny it?"

"If you were Sith, yes. You're not, so what's the point?"

What the hell. "What I don't understand is that if that's all true how are you here? How have the Sith not eaten you alive?"

Kariess's blank expression cracked and exhaustion washed over her face. "We've… been less guarded here than we usually are. I trust Lana." Her lips twitched upwards. "I didn't realize it was causing you such unease. I would have thought you would have been more comfortable with someone less foreboding. I can glower more if you'd feel better."

At least it would make more sense.

She looked at him thoughtfully. "As to how the Sith haven't 'eaten me alive,' I have been extremely careful. Shutting myself down. The Sith understand passion, but they also understand cold wrath. Calculations. So I lean into that. And now that I am in a position of power, I have less censure. And yet more punishment for any misstep." She leaned back in her chair, letting out a breath. "Marr mostly lets me do what I want, and what I want is to not interact with people. I think he suspects, but he finds me useful."

"You're saying that the head of the Dark Council doesn't have a problem with… a light side Sith?"

She tilted her head. "He, though not to the same extent as Lana, is a pragmatist. He knows that if we continue to go around killing each other and picking unnecessary fights with the Republic we won't survive.

"My parents are dead because of Sith politicking. So many people are. We claim to be a society of freedom, but that's only for the top. And reaching the top just guarantees a violent death later." She unlaced her fingers and rested her cheek on her palm. "I haven't felt the same need to hide here. Aside from all the people trying to kill us, it's actually been quite the relaxing vacation."

Theron tried to search her eyes for deceit, but he couldn't find any. Not that he necessarily trusted his ability to catch a Sith in a lie. "If…" Theron stopped to choose his words carefully. "If you honestly feel this way, you must have considered defecting."

At this she actually laughed with an undertone of bitterness. "Do you know what happens to Sith defectors?"

"The Jedi take them in–"

"And reeducate–"

"That's a bit far–"

Kariess held up a finger, motioning for him to stop. "Have you met Jedi? Their worldview is so inflexible that if you don't fit into it, you need fixing. 'Walk the light or you'll fall.' I don't feel fallen."

From what he'd read of her, seen of her, she didn't sound entirely wrong. "So what do you want? What does a 'light side Sith' want? If you're not after power but you're not after peace?"

Spreading her hands open, she let out a deep breath. "You know what I like, Theron? I like gliz. I like orange popsicles and mimosas and the ability to go where I want. If I turn myself into the Jedi, they'll take my lightsabers and lock me up on Tython. I might be allowed off if I'm a good little girl and think what they want me to. Under supervision of course. I can't be allowed to 'fall' again. I might be a bad Sith, but I don't want to be a Jedi."

He leaned forward on the table. "So you'd rather live in fear of death–"

Kariess leaned in on her elbows, staring him in the eye. "And be allowed to feel things than be locked up with–"

"I think you're being unnecessarily harsh–"

"You've dealt much with the Jedi?"

So she didn't know his history. He knew Lana knew, but it was also Lana's job to know things like that. He'd spent enough time in the SIS that the concept of someone not paranoid enough to immediately read up on who they were working with was… endearing. "Some, yeah."

They had both leaned so far into the table their hands were almost touching now. He was actively ignoring his implants that were unhelpfully telling him his heart rate was elevated above normal.

Kariess opened her mouth as if to start a new argument but stopped and took a deep breath. "Look, Theron, you joined the SIS because you wanted to, right? Nobody told you what you needed to do with your life?"

At least not since he got kicked out of the Jedi. "Not for joining the SIS, yeah."

"I didn't ask to be born force sensitive. But that means I don't get a choice. In the Empire you're shipped off to Korriban; in the Republic, Tython. And you're told what to think, what to feel, who to fight. I just want to live my life, but that's too much to ask. I've managed to carve out a perilous bit of freedom in the Empire. I won't have that if I defect." She flexed her fingers, a hair away from touching his, and pulled pack to her side of the table.

"'Through victory my chains are broken and the force shall free me,'" Theron muttered under his breath, leaning back in his own chair. He didn't need to be be disappointed at the distance between them.

Her eyes avoided his, instead falling on her hands. She flexed her fingers again, as if not knowing what to do with them, before folding them together on the table. "The Sith Code is imperfect, but I like it better than your Jedi Code. I like the 'yet' code more."

"The 'yet' code?"

"The alternate Jedi Code. 'Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.' An acknowledgment that everything exists in balance."

Theron did know that version and had a slight preference for it, too. And not just because it was shorter. But to take that as far as a claim of balance… "I would say that's pretty heretical for both sides."

"The Force is like..." she looked around the kitchen. "The Force is like the water in this mug. Actually, it's peach tea but just go with it. And the mug is the Jedi code. It's rigid." She held the mug off the end of the table. "And if it gets dropped…"

"Please don't break our mugs," said Theron.

Kariess rolled her eyes at him. "If it breaks, it's difficult to put back together. You can't reshape the water. That's why Jedi who venture a smidge out of the light, off the Jedi path, fall so dramatically. They don't know how to deal with anything outside their worldview so they break. If your code is a… plastene bag, then it can bend without spilling a single drop of water."

"I hate to break this to you, but have you ever seen water balloons? You're going to spill your force all over the ground. Peach tea everywhere." Could he restrain himself from making sarcastic commentary for one second?

She rolled her eyes at him. "So it's an imperfect metaphor. Do you have a better one?"

He shrugged. "It's not my code." The Jedi had made that clear.

"Fair enough." She placed the mug back on the table. "It's all scale. There is dark and there is light, but there's also the entire band in between."

"And you're not afraid of falling?"

"I trust myself. I feed the force with my emotions, yes, but I'm not ruled by them. 'Emotion, yet peace.' And sometimes that's anger. And sometimes that's love."

"The Jedi would say that's a dangerous emotion, too. That whole emotional detachment thing."

"And that's why I'm not a Jedi."

Theron crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. "So why tell me all this?"

A small smile tugged at her lips. "You asked."

Just because he asked didn't mean he expected a heart-to-heart with a Sith Lord. Well… no, it was better if he kept thinking of her as that. "You seem like a pretty private person, though, necessarily. Why tell me?"

She studied him. "I like you."

Asking her to clarify that statement was dangerous territory. "Thanks? Why?"

"You seem like a good person. I don't spend time with many good people."

"Maybe you should get higher standards. Just because I'm not an unhinged Sith..."

There was a hint of something in her eyes that he didn't want to go chasing. "How much do you actually want me to say?"

"I'm not a good person to get close to." At this point he didn't know if it was for his sake or hers.

She wrapped her hands back around her mug. "At least it doesn't do to keep mistrusting each other. Let's be friends, yes? At least for Rishi."

His retort that he didn't do friends died in his throat. There was being honest and there was being petty. "There's one for the case report. Making friends with Sith.

Exasperation tinged into her voice. "My point I've been trying to prove is that I'm a person."

"Yeah, I know." This was going to come back to bite him. Theron extended his hand across the table. "I'm not great at friends, but I can call truce."

"Truce." Kariess grasped his hand, a genuine smile on her face.

The mug of tea had warmed her hand and Theron felt himself holding on for maybe a few seconds longer than necessary. He coughed and withdrew, trying to find anything in the kitchen to look at but her. "Sure, that's… great."

She drew her hand back, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I should probably go to bed. I'm sure tomorrow is going to be exciting."

"Yeah. If my intel's right… yeah."

She stood up from the table, picking up her mug. "Well, goodnight. I hope you can eventually get some sleep, too."

"Yeah, thanks, goodnight."

He watched her leave, her bare feat padding softly across the kitchen floor. And now he was alone in the empty kitchen with just the hum of the lights for company. Whatever conversation they had just had, he was pretty sure he had lost. Yet he may have gained a lot more. The knowledge that the Emperor's Wrath was less than dedicated was a valuable piece of information for the Republic. The question was, how should he use it? And should he even?

Theron pushed back from the table. They still had time on Rishi. He could still process this, decide. Could he live with the consequences of the decision he might come to? That was not a question he could answer tonight.

Bed was a good idea though. After washing his plate, he left the kitchen heading back for his room. Somehow, though, he didn't think Kariess was going to occupy his thoughts any less.


End file.
